The aging population around the world has particular needs. These requirements range from medical to social, and the elderly in particular need assistance that public policy can address. Public policy can help fund medical coverage for the aging population and support the discipline that monitors them: gerontology.

As the global population lives longer, our understanding of this precious population and their needs has improved.

Gerontology offers the chance to use a wide variety of multidisciplinary knowledge. This includes:

Gerontology is the study of the aging process and individuals across the course of their lives. It includes:

Gerontology encompasses multidisciplinary medicine and integrates several study areas. This specialty combines a staff working together that includes doctors, nurses, behavioral and social scientists, social workers, biologists, economists, psychologists, those who study the humanities and the arts, policy experts, and many other scholars and researchers. This is a broader expansion of the field of geriatrics. 

Gerontology is multidisciplinary because it is necessary to understand the changes in society as populations throughout the world thrive in increasingly old age. The scientific study of this process occurs in the population that has achieved middle age. Application of this information in practice and procedures is very important. 

Gerontologists study the mental, physical, and social changes in the aging population. They can work in education, research, or direct medical services. 

Because of the multidisciplinary approach to gerontology, professionals from numerous fields consider themselves gerontologists. They improve the quality of life and promote the well-being of these aging residents as they grow older. They do this through education, research, practice, and the application of interdisciplinary intellects to studying aging processes and aging populations. This is different than geriatricians, which specialize in the medical aspect of older adult care. 

Sometimes, geriatrics and gerontology are used interchangeably, but actually, there is a specific difference between the two of them. Gerontology is the study of aging, while the study of disease and illness in the elderly is geriatrics.